I sit down to write, pausing to listen for a moment.

I flip open my laptop. Listen again. The kids are playing trains together in the bedroom, and I have a moment, to work on words.

I begin typing. One word.

I hear feet. Someone is going to the bathroom.

I write two more words.

“Mom!” Addie’s panicked voice.

“Yeah?”

“Alec just stuck his binky in the toilet!”

I jump up and begin running up the stairs.

“And mom?”

“Yeah?”

“He stuck it back in his mouth.”

Ugh. UGH! Oh, it’s so gross. I’m cringing, I’m gagging. I’m mentally calculating the number of germs he has just consumed. Is he going to survive? What did I read about the amount of e-choli in a toilet bowl? I grab Alec and scrub him down with soap and water, praying his immune system can withstand the onslaught.

I don’t write any more words that day, as the margin gives way to the tasks of motherhood, which scrawl across the bulk of my life in bold black and white ink the breadth of War and Peace. The constant ongoing conversation about why the sun shines, cleaning half-chewed pretzels off the rug, and wondering “What am I going to make for dinner,” are the activities that take up much of my day.

But why is this day notable?

Well one reason really, it’s because my mental dialogue was different than it normally is. It was lighter, less self-condemning, and less hyper-focused on the shame of pursuing creativity while my children were awake. The shame of allowing my child to get at a toilet, while I wrote three, insignificant words.

The shame of taking the time for a selfish pursuit.

The guilt over not being 100% dialed in all the time.

The self-condemnation for doing something that didn’t directly contribute to my role as a mom like cleaning, laundry, doing homeschool, cooking, or playing with my children. You see, I never have shame over doing those things.

I have had those shame-centered conversations in my head a million times. Every time something would go sideways in motherhood, I would spiral down a pathway of mental destruction. Every time something went sideways in life, I would find a way to blame it on my failings.

I’m also realizing shame is my go-to for all things.

Anyone else out there, who are shame mongers?

Someone cuts me off in traffic: shame. I must have been driving poorly. The barista got my order wrong at the coffee shop: shame. I must have mumbled my order. My kids are being kids, doing kid things (like making messes, fighting, having moments of struggle): shame. I’m a bad mother. The cycle of shame and guilt has been like a rip current in my life, the constant returning point. It has been the internal destruction mechanism, warring against my soul and sense of worth.

But not this particular day. The day, I began the journey in ending the cycle.

T h e S h i f t

You see, I had just finished reading a book called “Create Anyways: Pursuing Creativity in the Margins of Motherhood” by Ashlee Gadd. Among many things, it permitted me not to punish myself for pursuing creativity while my children are young, amid endless demands. Not to say, we are to neglect our children and lock them in a room so we can “live our best creative lives,” but it highlights the importance of modeling the truth that it is important to create — for the very sake of creating. That this enriches our children’s lives, by modeling that they should continue to create into adulthood.

I used to say, “I’ll invest more time into creativity when I’m not so exhausted, so mentally drained, so overwhelmed, so…”

But the thing I failed to realize is that motherhood and creativity are not mutually exclusive. You don’t have to forgo one to pursue the other. Sure, it’s going to be messy and hard and require sacrifice, but I’m learning it’s a sacrifice that is worthy of being made. And I don’t have to feel shame when my endeavor goes sideways in its pursuit.

W o r t h y

“In order to make space for creativity, we first must believe it is worthy of taking up space,” Ashlee wrote.

Do I believe the pursuit of creativity is worthy?

This was a major hang-up for me. You see I sometimes like to swap the word motherhood for martyrdom. And while yes, there is so much to motherhood that hinges on my ability to sacrifice, I sometimes take it too far. I take it farther than is healthy or more importantly, than God is asking me to go. I like to “feel better” knowing that I am doing everything I can to ensure my children are enriched while ignoring my own need for enrichment.

Ya’ll, please don’t come at me with the idyll of “putting the oxygen mask on mom before the kid’s” metaphor. I get it. I get the logical idea that moms need to stay alive so they can take care of their children, BUT THAT CHILD IS GETTING THE OXYGEN MASK FIRST. EVERY TIME. That’s my job as a mom, as a nurturer and protector. You can fight me on this all day, but I’m not budging.

With that said though, there is still space for me, in the cracks or the margins, if you will. The problem is, with a martyrdom spirit, I sometimes fail to see those spaces of time that I could scribble in some creativity. Why? Because feeling holy is sometimes an easier substitute for being holy.

Pursuing our God-given gifts as honor to Him, is an expression of not only praise, but obedience. The process of perfecting a craft, pursuing excellence and learning what He is trying to write in us and say through us, is a worthy endeavor in itself. It’s not about the end result that could come (a finished book, book sales, etc.) but about the growth process while moving through it. The truth of the matter is, writing is excruciating for me sometimes. I think, if this is what I’m supposed to be doing, why is it so hard? I’m learning that pursuing creative gifts and ideas is work, but that work is rewarding as it is an invitation to participate in our own unveiling and unfolding.

I’m finding that creativity is much less about inspiration than it is about discipline. The discipline to choose the better option, the harder option, the holier option.

C h o o s i n g B e t t e r

“If we want to create inspiring art, we have to consume inspiring art. We have to go where the light is, toward what is lovely, toward what makes us feel alive.”

I sometimes make the excuse of “I’m just too drained to write…” When the fact of the matter is, I don’t see it as a significant enough endeavor to engage in the creative pursuit over something that might make me feel good momentarily. Like a “harmless” social media scroll or a “mindless” rewatching of the I Love Lucy show.

Now, I’m not forgoing those activities absolutely, because mindless activities are sometimes important, but in my experience the more time I spend doing these things, the worse I feel. I believe there is no “neutral ground” as believers. We are either feeding our soul, or we’re depleting it. Things that truly nurture and feed us, should be the things that take up the cracks between the bulk of our other weightier demands. But do we truly gravitate towards those life-giving things? Or are we so quick to fill the cracks with things that are depleting us even further? I don’t know about you, but the draw to scroll on my phone when I’m tired at the end of a day IS A STRONG ONE. But what if I used that time to create something — anything — instead? What if creating is what I was made to do?

G u a r d I t

Ashlee wrote: “…’If you are doing anything of worth, the enemy is doing everything in his power to make you quit.’ At times, I have been slow to embrace this notion, because attributing my physical and mental struggles to nonspiritual causes feels easier to accept.”

As this realization dawned on me, I wanted to both cry and laugh. Why have I been so slow to acknowledge this truth? Why have I been so self-absorbed in my failings that maybe I’m completely missing the real culprit— the enemy of my soul — who is just doing his job?

Perhaps I’m not generating my own self-doubt. That gnawing, sucker-punching lie that slithers up anytime a creative thought or a desire to put into words the thoughts rolling in my head. I will tell you without a doubt, whenever I am being vulnerable or sharing something that is in real-time with where I’m at, I hear “No one is going to get this, people will roll their eyes, and this is not worthy of anyone’s time.”

Ultimately, the voice says: You are not worthy of time.

This one has kept me from sharing and creating more times than I can count.

But maybe, just maybe, those vulnerable words are the things I need to be saying. Those are the words I need to be writing. Those are the words that the enemy, the destroyer of good, the true, and the beautiful, does not want to be said.

Yet I will.

If only for the practice.

If only because I am better through the creating.

If only to grow in my ability to write through fear.

I hope you do too.

I not only hope, but pray, that you will embrace the need to create in whatever season you’re in. I pray that shame’s voice loses its prominence in your mind. I pray that you see the worth of your creative gifts. I pray that the very act of creating enriches not only your life but the lives of those around you.

May the sacrifice you make for creativity birth a garden that you will become lost in. May it hold gravitational force that attracts those who need it. May it be a fragrance to a lost and broken world, that the Master Creator, is holding His paintbrush poised and ready. May you realize that His creativity made y o u and through y o u He is painting, singing, writing, and displaying that He, yet lives.